It’s been a huge year for AFL Dream Team with some radical rule changes. Have they been a success? Have your say now… also, let us know your overall ranking as well as some of your best and worst of 2013.

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Thank you to everyone who has visited our site, commented on an article or contributed in anyway to make DT Talk the number one AFL Fantasy website/community in the country. The biggest thanks goes to all of our awesome writers who offer fantastic advice and content for the site to make this game enjoyable for everyone within the DT community. The site won’t be switched off because the season ended. We’ll be looking at SuperCoach Finals and AFL Fantasy Match Day over the finals too. And really, the pre-season for 2014 starts today!

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Author: Warnie
Co-CEO of DT Talk. My best ever fantasy finish was 13th overall in 2009, but I've been shit since! Maybe I need to take other peoples advice and not my own?! Follow me on Twitter: @WarnieDT

126 Comments

Team Name: Hirds of Paradise
Final Overall Ranking: 1370
Highest Score: 2,489 (round 23)
DT Brownlow: Riewoldt
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouch
Best Starting Pick: Riewoldt
Best Trade: Ellis in before his first 110+ game and Montagna in for Round 23 (189)
Worst Trade: Scotland/Ibbotson
Thoughts on rule changes: Success!
Suggestions for 2014: Definitely need to be able to do multi-position DPP swaps/trades

Team Name: Victorious Secret
Final Overall Ranking: 20k
Highest Score: 2301 in the Preliminary Final
DT Brownlow: Brendan Goddard – I’m going against the trend of picking slightly here, but he is a worthy recipient – ave 105+, low of 71 (R1)
DT Rookie of the Year: Jaeger O’Meara
Best Starting Pick: Tom Rockliff
Worst Starting Pick: Sam Jacobs
Best Trade: Hartlett to J Selwood (R9)
Worst Trade: Bringing in Grant Birchall at 518k!!
Thoughts on rule changes: Enjoyed the 44 trades and the best-18 rule over the byes. Also loved the fact there was no Rolling Lockout
Suggestions for 2014: Main one I would like to see is the Multiple DPP moves while trading. I would like to see a cap on trades, rather than 2 per week…..Have a cap, maybe 30 trades – same as SC and coupled with Multiple DPP moves – I think that would be quite good!

Team Name: Hoffy’s Heroes
Highest Score: 2348
DT Brownlow: Gary Ablett! Served me so well starting with him over Swanny. Got a captain average of about 125 with him!
DT Rookie of the Year: Jaeger O’Meara all day.
Best Starting Pick: Dyson Heppell or Travis Cloke.
Best Trade: Moloney at his peak (415k) to Swanny at his lowest (521k)
Worst Trade: Mundy to Daisy Thomas.
Thoughts on rule changes: Loved the 44 trades. Really kept it tactical with sideways trades. Maybe up the limit each week to 3 (whilst keeping the 44 trades) so people still have to preserve to an extent..
Suggestions for 2014: Make DPP trading with more than one switch possible. Also as above ^

Team Name: dont want to tarnish my anonymity! #famous
Final Overall Ranking: in the 5000’s
Highest Score: 2362 (prelim)
DT Brownlow: Roo. Amazing season. Defied the odds!
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM or Crouch. Flip a coin.
Best Starting Pick: Goddard – with all the backline carnage he was one player that scored extremely well week in, week out.
Best Trade: Jelwood.
Worst Trade: Cotchin to Beams in the gf :(
Thoughts on rule changes: liked the best 18 for bye rounds, thought 44 trades was excessive though.
Suggestions for 2014: Cap on trades. Similar amount to SC. Multi DPP moves. Gold, silver and bronze medal or trophy next to the top 3 players of the previous year. Less backline carnage (or any carnage). Let me win lotto.

Team Name: Great Hippos
Final Overall Ranking:355
Highest Score:2500(Rn 23)
DT Brownlow: Ablett
DT Rookie of the Year: O’meara
Best Starting Pick: J selwood
Best Trade: Leunberger to Kreuzer(rnd 10) to Minson (rnd 20)
Worst Trade: Gibbs to Scotland
Thoughts on rule changes: Good, but possibly only 40 trades so we still have to choose a little when to use them
Suggestions for 2014: as above and less byes would be nice

Team Name: Leather Poisoning
Final Overall Ranking: 5476
Highest Score: 2375
DT Brownlow: 3. Swan 2. Cox 1. Goddard
DT Rookie of the Year: 3. O’Meara 2. Mitchell 1. Crouch
Best Starting Pick: Dean Cox – Too old, Naitanui will take all his points etc i was told all pre-season. Stuck by the old fella, and come out with a 97 point average
Best Trade: Westhoff to Johnson
Worst Trade: Gibbs to Birchall when he was averaging 119, and then went on to average about 60 until i traded him out
Thoughts on rule changes: Didn’t mind them, got me to my highest ever ranking, or that may have been natural progression
Suggestions for 2014: Multiple DPP changes available when trading

Huge thank you to everybody who contributed to the site over the year, Calvin, Roy, Warnie, Tbetta, McRath, Dunny, Matt, JimBob, Jeppa, Nix and Lefty. Sorry if I have missed anybody. If it wasn’t for the great articles you bring to the table, I wouldn’t have got anywhere near were I would have got, and I would have probably have given up ages ago.

Also, I must extend a congratulations to Hook. Congratulations to wining the overall comp. Enjoy the 50k and the grand final experience.

Also, to Noah aka Miesy’s Masters!!, for winning the schools comp, make sure Warnie, Calvin and Roy and enjoy the iPad, the$400 AFL voucher and the footy equipment for your school

Team Name: YOUNGTELLICA
Final Overall Ranking: 9
Highest Score: 2,432
DT Brownlow: Montagna & Griffen
DT Rookie of the Year: O’Meara & Dwyer
Best Starting Pick: Kreuzer
Best Trade: Watson & O’Meara to Montagna & Boyd in Round 13. Turned 2 donuts into 292 (as captain) and 152. Jumped from no. 56 to no. 11
Worst Trade: Goodes & Gibbs to Birchall & Hartlett.
Thoughts on rule changes: Liked the additional trades, magic number needs to be changed to keep them though. Too many similar teams.
Suggestions for 2014: Something needs to be done about late withdrawals, not sure what as yet. Perhaps 3 bench mids and 1 bench ruck. Would like to see more DPP players as well like Simpson and McVeigh as DEF etc.
Congrats to Hook, well deserved and thanks to everyone at DT Talk for the amazing job they do year in year out.

Team Name: Modern Marvels
Final Overall Ranking: 61
Highest Score: 2460
DT Brownlow: Goddard – A rock in Defence all yr
DT Rookie of the Year: Omeara
Best Starting Pick: Pendles
Best Trade: Barlow – Libba + Leuenberger – Minson to get back into the top 100 this week.
Worst Trade: Moloney – Birchall for 69 and 32 before getting injured
Thoughts on rule changes: Enjoy the freedom with trades, took a punt on players id have never considered otherwise
Suggestions for 2014: Maybe reduce the trades down to 30 and allow for multiple DPP moves in a trade.

Huge thanks to all who contribute regularly with articles/advice that have assisted me throughout the course of the yr. Extended thanks to Warnie, Calvin & Roy. The site has been extremely helpful all year and I wouldn’t be half the DT’er without the stats you boys offer up every week.

Team Name:CorpseGrinders
Final Overall Ranking:11609
Highest Score:2333
DT Brownlow:Goddard
DT Rookie of the Year:Crouch
Best Starting Pick:Barlow
Best Trade:reiwoldt
Worst Trade:ROK
Thoughts on rule changes: Far to many trades. Teams were way to similar.
Everybody had complete teams by round 16-18, then its just sideways and fixture trades. nobody had to back there premos in. The art of the game was always when to trade and when to hold. That has now been lost.
Suggestions for 2014: Deperately needs a trade cap. 30 would be more than enough to keep the casuals involved. Maybe a similar system to EPL fantasy could be implemented, where you get 1 free trade a week then you have to pay cash for any extra trades. If it remains like this I think I’ll just do SC.
Thanks for the awesome articles all season lads. Plenty of info and lots of laughs as well. Brownlow goes to Tbetta!

Team Name: The Brown Notes
Final Overall Ranking: 1785
Highest Score: 2350
DT Brownlow: Swan – played every game and pigged out like no other can!
DT Rookie of the Year: J-Bomb
Best Starting Pick: Goddard – the man’s a rock
Best Trade: Pittard to Ellis
Worst Trade: Gibbs to Hartlett to Malceski. just trading in the back line in general, defence was brutal this year!
Thoughts on rule changes: love the 44 trades as it gives me something to tweak every week.
Suggestions for 2014: although i like the extra trades it should be a little more difficult to complete your team. if this means adjusting the magic number, i’m all for that.

Team Name: JigoJitoku
Final Overall Ranking: 672
Highest Score: 2372
DT Brownlow: Swan
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM
Best Starting Pick: Pendles, esp early
Best Trade: Priddis was a cheap pickup who scored multiple 100s
Worst Trade: Sucked in by the Hoff
Thoughts on rule changes: Uncapped trades made finals tough but overall pretty good this year.
Suggestions for 2014: The ability to set up a head to head with another team, perhaps just for a round.

Team Name: Essendope
Final Overall Ranking: 34,379
Highest Score: 2321 (Round 17)
DT Brownlow: Swan/ Goddard
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouch/JOM
Best Starting Pick: Jaeger
Best Trade: Round 19 Talia/ Nicholls out Grundy/ Gibbs in
Worst Trade: Round 8 Hartlett for Birchall/ Round 18 out Bartel in Kennedy
Thoughts on rule changes: Too many trades, most people would have finished teams by like round 17 and would be making fixture changes after.
Suggestions for 2014: Less trades, as a personal note would like to see live eliminator scores. Would like to see like a notification of some sort to notify us of late subs (my mate lost his league by 10 points because of Heritier, but sort of his fault because he didnt have any bench cover)

Team Name: Long Live The Torp
Final Overall Ranking: 830
Highest Score: 2480
DT Brownlow: Stevie J
DT Rookie of the Year: Terlich
Best Starting Pick: Pendlebury
Best Trade: Westhoff to Johnson (when it was a $300 profit)
Worst Trade: Riewoldt to Franklin
Thoughts on rule changes: Loved the 44 trades and the best 18 through the bye rounds
Suggestions for 2014: Maybe a rule if one of your starting players is the sub you get an reserve score if it is higher and maybe reduce trades to 36 or something

Team Name: :) Team
Final Overall Ranking: 18k
Highest Score: 2313
DT Brownlow: Goddard
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouch
Best Starting Pick: Rocky, Cox, Goddard
Best Trade: Scotland to Ellis last round.
Worst Trade: Getting Birchall at his peak :(
Thoughts on rule changes: the best 18 through the byes was great but i think that the 44 trades was too many. too many similar teams and too easy for the bad teams to catch up.
Suggestions for 2014: 30 trades!

Team Name: have no clue
Final Overall Ranking: 495
Highest Score: 2313
DT Brownlow: the Pig even though he’s had better seasons
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM
Best Starting Pick: Pendles
Best Trade: Leuy > Kreuzer (Rnd 10)…he went on to average 99 and make 130k+
Worst Trade: brought in Ibbotson after his good run
Thoughts on rule changes: love the new structure, 44 trades and best 18
Suggestions for 2014: multiple dpp moves

Team Name: footyswag101
Final Overall Ranking: 16 834
Highest Score: 2371
DT Brownlow: Leigh Montagna
DT Rookie of the Year: Jaeger O’Meara
Best Starting Pick: Brent Stanton
Best Trade: Mayes-Stokes (round 8)
Worst Trade: out cotchin in hannebery (the week cotchin started doing good and did well for the rest of season)
Thoughts on rule changes: Great
Suggestions for 2014: Rolling lockout? allow to use an extra trade if a player is sub?

Team Name: Auto Filled
Final Overall Ranking: 4
Highest Score: 2,348
DT Brownlow: Goddard big scores all season long in Def!
DT Rookie of the Year: Terlich
Best Starting Pick: J Kennedy (Eagles)
Best Trade: Hodge -> Montagna Rd 11 (Only wanted him as a captain rd 13 keep him all season)
Worst Trade: Bartel -> Mayne Rd 21 (Cost me 132 points in 3 rounds when I finished only 294 points off the leader)
Thoughts on rule changes: Helped me a lot last year I finished last in my league lol don’t even know what my overall finish was.
Suggestions for 2014: I liked the way it went this season keep it the same.

Team Name: The Epic Team
Final Overall Ranking: Bad
Highest Score: 2457 (rnd 23)
DT Brownlow: Goddard (reliable and played every game in my team)
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouch
Best Starting Pick: Goddard/Rocky/Cox
Best Trade: Birchall to Pendlebury (rnd 14)
Worst Trade: Heppell to Hartlett (Heppell missed 1 week, Hartlett turned crap) (rnd 6)
Thoughts on rule changes: Glad they are there, keeps me interested for a lot longer.
Suggestions for 2014: Multi DPP moves, more useful DPP players, choose any team to compare to your team in the head to head screen during lockout, Sub out a sub affected score for an emergency score (one per week).

Team Name: N1qQ45 4R3 K1nG5
Final Overall Ranking: 11, 623
Highest Score: 2475
DT Brownlow: no one else deserves it as much as Goddard IMO. GAJ an EXTREMELY close second
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM or Crouch, the coin must be flipped
Best Starting Pick: Its a toughy this one, between Cox, Rockliff, JJK and Pendles
Best Trade: Wines to Priddis or Simpson to Minson
Worst Trade: A bit harsh maybe but…. Titchell to Beams. But the winner is Terlich to Duffield the first round he went swizzle was the round I brought Duffield in and when Terlich went good it was the round I traded him out!)
Thoughts on rule changes: Well played to VS for making these changes, kept everyone happy and they came at the most carnage-riddled season!
Suggestions for 2014: As mentioned in plenty of previous comments, more than one DPP switch per trade. Also, more bench positions would be beneficial.

Also, my ranking did not do your work justice guys (Roy, Clavin, Warnie, TBetta, Matt Craig, Jeppa, Dunny, JimBob, Lefty, Nix and the guys that helped out and commented in the ‘My Team’ section a lot! Just some stupid starting team decisions and early trades that stuffed me up.
But thanks guys and I look forward to a great pre-season!

Team Name: Hellborn Demons
Final Overall Ranking: 1’168
Highest Score: 2’340
DT Brownlow: Swan
DT Rookie of the Year: Mark Blicavs (seriously saved my bacon a couple of times)
Best Starting Pick: Joel Selwood (slow patch, but came home strong!)
Best Trade: Crouch to Liberatore last round. Nearly won me the GF (if not for Harry!)
Worst Trade: Pittard to Grimes. Grimes then gets injured for 18 that week :(
Thoughts on rule changes: 2 trades a week is the best thing to ever happen to this game. Kept the lower places close and everyone more interested. Far fewer ghost ships.
Suggestions for 2014: change the magic number to limit amount each trade can do. Other than that nothing.

I am heart broken to go undefeated only to lose in the GF due to 2 late outs in the backline. If I had a second emergency on the line, I would have got Grimes 91 and won :'(

Team Name: Sheep Squad
Final Overall Ranking: 1853
Highest Score: 2417
DT Brownlow: Swanny was solid
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouchy is my favourite though his injury and getting dropped was anooying, but was brilliant after that so ill pick him
Best Starting Pick: Everyone was shit at the start apart from obvious guys (swan, pendles) so id say hamish hartlett
Best Trade: Montagna in 2 weeks ago for a 123 and 189
Worst Trade: Traded in duffield at 2 different stages this year and he was shit both times, probably never again list
Thoughts on rule changes: I like the two trades, i remember how screwed over i was last year when i ran out
Suggestions for 2014: More cash at the start ;)

DT Brownlow: Dane Swan. 22 games, average of 117.5… What more could we ask for from him?!

DT Rookie of the Year: Jaeger O’Meara – the best rookie season we’ve ever seen from a fantasy perspective. 22 games for a 90-point average – exceeded all expectations.

Best Starting Pick: Scott Selwood. Nailed the break-out; increased from 97.7 avg last year to 108.4 this season – his 5th consecutive 10-point average jump from the previous year!

Best Trade: Either Pridds at basement (round 8), where he went on to average 101.8 per game from Tbetta Than You, or Lewis (Round 17) and his 101.3 average for my side.

Worst Trade: Where to begin? Ebert at $524k for his stretch of 87, 83, 80 and 76; Waters on the eve of his fateful late withdrawal; Daisy Thomas moments before end-of-year surgery.

Thoughts on rule changes: Loved Best 18 over byes, sorted all the issues we had last year. Extra Emergency was a rousing success, as was the more exciting 6-8-2-6 structure.
44 Trades was a year of two halves for me; loved it up until Round 15 or so, and complete sides meant fixture/luxury/sideways trading was all we had left. Boring, and left too much to luck. Much prefer the year-long task of building a strong – but imperfect – side, if not for the loyalty side of things (and the sense that you actually own your players), then the truer representation of a good fantasy coach, not simply a mirror of the luck you had in the last 8 rounds.

Suggestions for 2014: 44 Trades is still a winner for me, but there has to be a rise in the Magic Number! I said it last year, and I said it again when the changes came in without a significant change in the MN. Teams completed too quickly – it was obvious that it would happen. MN needs to rise, or rookies need to be $50k more expensive – lessening the cash made in each cash cow cycle, and extending the “squad building” aspect of the game for (hopefully) the entire season. Haven’t though about much else – that was just a standout for mine.

Team Name: BrownDynamites
Final Overall Ranking: 33
Highest Score: 2426
DT Brownlow: BJ Goddard, only person besides swanny that was reliable to show up every week. Avoided all the backline carnage throughout the year
DT Rookie of the Year: Crouch
Best Starting Pick: JJK, Didnt have to waste a trade bringing him in
Best Trade: the double downgrade to nicholls and mitchell, or bringing in Boydy for his 150.
Worst Trade: Terlich to Birch before terlich went on a run )':
Thoughts on rule changes: first year playing so can’t really comment on this as I’ve never seen the rules before. But 44trades is good, however makes it easier for everyone to get a 22premo team by round 23.
Suggestions for 2014: DDP trading as said before. Also prize money for top 3?

Team Name: the spuds
Final Overall Ranking: 1076
Highest Score:2366
DT Brownlow: Rockliff
DT Rookie of the Year: O’Meara
Best Starting Pick: Goddard
Best Trade: bringing in jelwood right when he started his good run
Worst Trade: Westhoff in right when he goes shit!
Thoughts on rule changes: Love them
Suggestions for 2014: if a player bouces the ball, it should be 1 point!

Team Name: Smurphs
Final Overall Ranking: 1868
Highest Score: 2332… last week
DT Brownlow: Swan
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM
Best Starting Pick: Saint Nick
Best Trade: Jelwood in Rd16… Averaging 124 and +112k
Worst Trade: ROK to Beams in GF… JOM to Bartel not much better
Thoughts on rule changes: Not sold on 44 trades… Every week there seemed to be less and less uniques. In one GF only 6 players different. Add the fact he had Joey and there was really no way of making up those points.
Suggestions for 2014: Not that I was ever close… But a reduction in overall prize money to say, 30k and add $500 weekly prize. Much better than a couple of tickets to the footy.

Team Name: Hornedbeasts
Final Overall Ranking: 3293
Highest Score: 2308(Rd22)
DT Brownlow: Dane “Piggy” Swan
DT Rookie: Jaeger “Bomb” O’Meara & Dean “Toelicker” Trelich
Best Starter: Nick Riewoldt
Best Trade: Rd18 Deledio -> Jelwood
Worst Trade: ( few too many to choose from)
Rd5 Stevenson -> Hutchins only to see Pittard get a donut having to take Hutchins 31 while Stevenson gets his season high of 82.
Thoughts on rule changes: Was skeptical that 44 trades being too many but at times 2/week wasn’t enough, so overall about right. Like the team structure
Suggestions for 2014:
1. Multi-position DPP swaps/trades, seems a given.
2. Change the Magic Number calculation (see Warnies earlier comments)
3. Make one of the EMG “the SuperSub” (trademark pending, haha), doubles score if used.

Team Name: JaredsEagles
Final Overall Ranking: 1310
Highest Score:2421 (R17)
DT Brownlow: Swan (NRoo and Pendles close behind)
DT Rookie of the Year: JOM
Best Starting Pick: Pendles, Lewis and Jack Steven
Best Trade: Neade>GAJ (rd 8)
Worst Trade: Greene>Libba then Libba>Westhoff. Also trading out Steven at Rd 20
Thoughts on rule changes: Enjoyed the 44 trades, but agree on the rookie price increase is needed. Like the way the bye rounds work, looking forward to the 2 lots of byes next year (jumped 12k to 3k this yr)
Suggestions for 2014: Will never, but would love an option to “buy” trades for points (FPL style)

Team Name: Dingus
Final Overall Ranking: 67 239 (First year)
Highest Score: 2294
DT Brownlow: Swan
DT Rookie of the Year: Jaeger O’Meara
Best Starting Pick: Almost none….JJK and Goddard?
Best Trade: Dwyer -> Joel Selwood ($430k and before all the 130’s.)
Worst Trade: Sam Reid -> Westhoff (Rnd 4)
Thoughts on rule changes: Let DPP work more than once in a single trade.
Suggestions for 2014: I don’t know. Figure out a way to make the byes enjoyable.